Marko Arnautovic did not fly out to Switzerland with his teammates ahead for their training camp in Switzerland as Manuel Pellegrini met his players for the first time.

The reigning Hammer of the Year has been given an extra week off to prepare for pre-season as he was involved in three international friendlies for Austria ahead of the World Cup, which his country didn't participate in.

Arnautovic appeared for his country in games against Russia, Germany and Brazil as those three countries warmed up for the tournament and the West Ham man scored three times across those games.

The 29-year-old is only expected to skip the first week of the training camp - and therefore the friendly with FC Winterthur on Sunday - before flying out to join up with the team for the last few days of the trip.

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That means the forward's first pre-season friendly of the summer could be the trip to Wycombe Wanderers on July 14. He has been doing light work while he has been on holiday this summer in preparation for his return to the capital.

Marko Arnautovic has been given extra time of this summer (Image: Alex Morton/Getty Images)

The rest of the first team squad - with the exception of new signing Lukasz Fabianski, Cheikhou Kouyate, Javier Hernandez and the injured Manuel Lanzini - have flown out to Switzerland.

Arnautovic last played in a friendly against Brazil on June 10 ahead of the World Cup so has been allowed extra time. Declan Rice also played in friendlies this summer but his most recent one was on June 2 and will travel as usual with the squad.

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The World Cup playing trio are expected to report back to Rush Green in around a fortnight's time while the injured Lanzini will also come back to London for rehabilitation on his torn ACL and subsequent surgery later in the month as well.

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